In optical networking, optical interfaces can be realized through optical pluggable transceivers which are defined via Multisource Agreements (MSAs), such as QSFP and variants thereof, CFP and variants thereof, etc. These pluggable transceivers can be used by networking hardware, such as switches, routers, etc., to form protected bi-directional links. For example, pluggable transceivers can be included in a network element to provide protected client-side connectivity. There are various types of client-side optical protection, such as Y-cable protection, Optical 1+1 via an Optical Protection Switch (OPS), etc. Disadvantageously, some MSA transceivers, such as QSFP and variants thereof, lack a transmitter (Tx) disable pin. Specifically, as the size of these transceivers decreases, there is less available space for pins, such as a Tx disable pin. Without such a pin, turning the transceiver Tx on and off is a slow process, e.g. hundreds of milliseconds, which is unacceptable from a time perspective in any protection scheme. Other types of MSAs do define a Tx disable pin, such as SFP+, XFP, and CFP and variants thereof. However, the implementation here does not provide a mechanism to disable/enable individual lanes. For example, the Tx disable pin in CFP would control all lanes which is inflexible for transceivers carrying multiple clients, N×M (e.g., 4×100, 4×25, 10×10, etc.).
There is a need to support fast client-side protection switch in optical pluggable transceivers in a manner fully supported by host devices to the associated specifications.